


Sanders

by dilangley



Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: John's perspective, M/M, Pre-Canon, They've been slow burning, smut in the second chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-27 21:24:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16710295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilangley/pseuds/dilangley
Summary: He’s surprised Arthur even wants him to come along on this hunting trip. They haven’t done something just the two of them in too long. They split up a lot these days: Arthur and Hosea, John and Dutch. At camp, they all still joke and argue and sing and squabble, but the fractures are there just the same.And John has no idea why.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Both chapters of this are written. I just need to clean up the second a bit to get it ready to publish. I have no beta reader, so forgive me my sins.
> 
> I also do not typically write in present tense, but this one demanded it.

“Gentlemen, it has come to my attention that the ladies,” Dutch laces the word with sarcasm, “are tired of roughing it in these unacceptable conditions. You might think I am referring to the tents we rushed to pitch before nightfall or the pinched stomachs because we left our canned goods with some folks who needed feeding, but I am not.”

John waits for the punchline. Dutch loves the drama of a camp announcement, and if the glitter in his eyes is any indication, this one is going to be unexpected.

“The ladies say the one thing that makes this camp life too much for them to bear with grace is…”

Dutch weighs his pause, savors the moment. “Your smell!”

An incredulous murmur of chuckles and indignation sweeps across those gathered. Susan Grimshaw appears at Dutch’s side from nowhere, always ready, always capable, careful to never interrupt or undermine the person she believes in most. John loves Dutch, more than he could have ever loved his own drunken father, but he suspects his reverence for the man cannot hold a candle to Ms. Grimshaw’s. Only when Dutch claps his hands and turns away from the assembly does she speak.

“You boys have been so busy robbing,” she is forced to pause by a raucous cheer, “and killing,” another cheer goes up, “and swiving the wealthy population of these fair states that I don’t think there’s been one decent bath among the lot of you in a month.”

“She’s saying you all smell like the wrong end of a skunk,” Karen hollers.

“I take exception to that.” Reverend Swanson raises his hand, sober enough to prepare an unwanted lecture on the Lord.

“So do the skunks,” Abigail says, quiet, deadpan, and timed so perfectly that she gets a laugh out of everyone. A shot at their fallen pastor might be a cheap one, but it unifies. Everyone likes to laugh at a man of the cloth because it is easier than fearing eternal damnation might be real.

“So get you to town for a fancy bath or to the river with a bar of lye soap for a poor man’s soaking,” Ms. Grimshaw produces two bars out of her apron. “But do not think about coming back near this camp until you are clean.”

John scratches at the side of his neck and checks his fingernails for dirt. He should have glanced at them first, though, because now he cannot tell if the brown and red lurking there is from his skin or previous altercations.

“That means you too, John Marston,” Abigail is at his side now, her hands on her hips, her pretty eyes glowing. “Get gone and take soap.”

She smiles at him in that way of hers, her mouth a little tight at the corners as if trying to disguise a big tumble of admiration and affection.

He is three years older than her, barely anything at all, but when she arrived at the camp as a teenager and he could claim his twenties -- if he lied a little -- he had felt the age difference like a promotion. Now it was someone else’s turn to look up to him, and oh boy, did Abigail ever do that. She looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky when he explained something he learned from one of Hosea’s books or showed her one of the tricks for living off the land.

For a girl who raised herself in shady saloons doing dirty deeds, this seems like heaven.

He remembers that feeling, the hero worship of the person bringing you into this whole new world. Embarrassed, he turns away.

“Okay.” He makes his way to Ms. Grimshaw and asks sheepishly for a bar of soap. She narrows her eyes at him and makes him wonder if he had been the chief reason for her complaint to Dutch. He had been busy, and he hated the water worse than poison. It may have well have been a month since he had last gone under. He considers reminding her that he wipes himself off at night before bed -- he’s not a heathen -- but doesn’t risk the lecture that might follow.

“Town or river, Marston?” Arthur Morgan appears at his side. His voice rumbles in that octave below everyone else’s.

“Why?” John is suspicious.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, we could use some meat. I thought I’d go set up camp and do a little hunting,” Arthur says it so matter-of-factly, without bite, but John reads into it the familiar refrain of his own foolishness. Of course they need food, and of course, if they need anything, anything at all, Arthur is going to be the one to provide it.

“And come back a hero, no doubt.” John always has been shit at resisting temptation and holding his tongue.

“I always do,” Arthur shoots back coolly, eyebrow raised. “You coming?”

John nods. He feels a hand lay on his arm, feather-light, and glances back to see Abigail step into his orbit.

“Hey there, Abigail,” Arthur says. John never gets this voice, when Arthur softens up and smoothes out like honey. “How are you?”

“Good. Stomach’s finally starting to feel better.” She smiles. John feels the sudden crackle in the air of the two of them about to gang up on him. He wonders if they do it on purpose, shift a little closer together, tilt their heads toward one another, suddenly lose all ability to look at him like he’s not even there.

“Mind if I borrow your boy for a little hunting?” Arthur asks.

“Will he still take a bath?”

Arthur grins. “If I have to hold him under the river myself.”

“Then borrow away. Hell, keep him.” But even as she says it, she squeezes John’s arm and lets him glimpse that softness in her face.

He and Arthur saddle up in silence. It should feel good to finally have a reprieve from Arthur’s unsolicited advice -- Check that horse’s hooves before you mount up. Make sure you have extra ammo. Did you forget your damn lasso again? Jesus, John. -- but the quiet burns in John’s ears until they’re about a mile from camp. Things haven’t been the same between him and Arthur, not in a while. The missing diatribe on his mistakes was only part of the problem.

He’s surprised Arthur even wants him to come along on this hunting trip. They haven’t done something just the two of them in too long. If he was willing to admit it to himself, John would have to acknowledge it had been even longer than that since things were right. They split up a lot these days: Arthur and Hosea, John and Dutch. At camp, they all still joke and argue and sing and squabble, but the fractures are there just the same.

And John has no idea why.

Abigail distracts him from it without knowing it, and for that, he was grateful. But tonight, in the dusky twilight, there are no distractions. 

“Figured you’d want a break from everybody,” John finally wades into the silence. “It’s been a couple weeks of nothing but together.”

“Sure. Why the hell do you think I’m not talking?” Arthur touches his heels to his horse’s sides a little harder, and he’s trotting ahead now, just out of the range of eye contact.

“Okay.” John tries to comply. He makes it about sixty seconds. “Where are we hunting?”

“A little spot I know.”

“Where’s it near?”

“Nowhere. That’s what I like about it.” Arthur sighs and turns in the saddle. “I only know one way to shut you up.”

John’s hands tighten on his reins. He gulps and tries to pretend he doesn’t go cold for an instant. Arthur is the most feared man among them for a reason.

“Ride you into the goddamned ground.” Arthur whirls in the saddle, threads his hands up his horse’s neck, and clucks. “Let’s go, boy.”

His horse takes off, a bullet made of black and white, and John’s colt shies away in surprise, nearly unseating him.

“Damn it.” John gathers his reins and chases, but he is no match for the man who taught him to ride. They gallop until he finally calls out his defeat. Arthur pulls up, triumphant, a little cocky, but John cannot bring himself to feel beaten. Not when Arthur’s grinning like that, the dropping sun behind his back setting him on fire.

“Had enough?”

“For now.”

This time, they talk as their whuffing horses catch their breath. By the time they make camp, John feels the weight of the world shed off like snake skin. There’s no plans and dreams and ideals out here, no rivalries or uncertainties, no conflicting relationships spinning crisscrossed webs around them.

He bites the inside of his cheek to hold back all the things he should not say.

He is not going to ruin this. They are going to sleep under the stars and shoot animals to eat.

Just like old times. Just the way John likes.

  
  


\--------------------

  
  
  


“I’m not getting in that water.” John stares out at the pond Arthur somehow found, slimy brown-green and hopping with bullfrogs. 

“Listen, I’d take you to a river if I could, but I know how you feel about running water…”

“Shut the hell up, Arthur Morgan.”

“And you smell worse than you look. Abigail must really love you to share a bed with you.”

John tries to decide which answer will earn him the most slack: the cocky lie that Abigail, Arthur’s favorite gal, would not kick John out of bed if he were covered in pig shit or the embarrassing truth that they haven’t shared a bedroll much lately. It’s been warm, and he’s been preoccupied.

John waits too long to answer.

“You’ve got to the count of five to make up your mind before I’m throwing you in.”

“Like hell you are,” John says. Arthur starts to count, thumb jutting out first, his other fingers joining in. He says five at the same moment he takes a step forward. “Jesus, wait. Fine. I get it. How far’s the river?”

“About a quarter of a mile east of here.”

“Fine. I’m going. Make sure we’ve got dinner when I get back.”

He rides to the river, the bar of soap thumping in his pocket. Under the moonlight, he pulls off each layer of clothing and gives them a reluctant sniff. So he can smell some blood, a little bit of good red clay, and maybe, just maybe, a little bit of the rancid smell of old sweat. He looks around foolishly to confirm that he is alone in the middle of nowhere before gathering up the bundle and wading out into the water.

It swirls around his legs, so cold it takes his breath away, and he starts to bargain with the Lord over the good deeds he will do if only he does not have to wade in any deeper. His skin breaks out in gooseflesh, and his manhood shrinks into itself. He stares out at the deeper water, twirling in slow, lazy eddies. If he could swim, he could just dive in and paddle about out there, get it over with at once.

“This is bullshit,” he mutters.

Finally, the fear of Arthur coming looking forces him deeper into the water, and he scrubs as quickly as possible. He doesn’t want to hear the jokes about John Marston nearly drowning taking a bath.  He cleans the clothes too, even though there is nothing more miserable than putting back on sopping pants and getting on a horse.

“You owe me a whiskey,” John announces as he rides up to their camp. Arthur appraises him and lets out a low whistle.

“You look awfully wet and cold. Miserable. Shame you didn’t remember to pack different clothes.”

John grunts and winces as he drops straight off the side of his horse. He bow-legs his way over to the small fire. He reaches out. “Whiskey.” 

Arthur obliges, putting a hunk of browned meat in one hand and the open bottle of liquor in another, and John offers his thanks. They sit together by the fire, eating and drinking, until John’s shivering interrupts his bites. He tries to clamp his teeth together. The last thing he needs is Arthur’s derision, not when the peace between them is settling into the grooves and smoothing them out again. Not when this trip is making him feel like he has come home for the first time in a long time.

But Arthur surprises him. He leans forward and appraises. “You’re going to catch your death sitting around in wet clothes like that.”

“I’m fine.” John clenches his jaw to steady his teeth, but his hands shake.

“Sure.” Arthur shrugs out of his tan jacket and walks over to his horse’s pack. He offers John a pile of clothes. “Go ahead.”

The familiarity burns up from the whiskey in his belly to his cheeks, flushing them red. When they were younger, more like brothers yet also more distant than now, they used to take off for weeks at a time. John had never packed adequately, had always ended up wearing Arthur’s castoff shirts and using his backup gun. How many trains had he hopped with a striped shirt flapping around his body?

A memory comes to him suddenly. He remembers one of those trips, one of the very last ones, and their return to camp. He hadn’t been so young then, eighteen, maybe nineteen, when they had robbed a bank in a frontier town on their own. It had been John’s first time taking flank, not the distraction or part of a group, but the one person with a gun responsible for keeping his partner alive. He had burned with pride at the trust. Of course, it had all gone sideways, but neither of them had been hurt, they had gotten a little money, and then they had spent a cheerful week on the lam, living off squirrels and picked berries.

When they got back to camp, Dutch’s face had darkened, and his eyes had been on Arthur, only Arthur.

“Did you have a nice trip?” He had asked, cold as ice. Arthur had mumbled his reply. “I need to speak with you, brother. Join me in my tent?”

John wonders why this comes back to him now and why Dutch’s voice had sounded that way. Perhaps memory warps and woofs like old wood battered by too many rains. Maybe Dutch had not been unhappy. But now his words ring in John’s head as he changes into Arthur’s clothes under the tent.

_ “I need to speak with you.” _

Like a child called to his father’s side for breaking a long-established rule.

_ “I need to speak with you.” _

Like a hired gun on the long, dragging walk to the boss’s study to get fired.

John lays his wet clothes out on nearby rocks and makes his way back to the fire. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.” Arthur downs some baked beans, cold, straight from the can. John grimaces. He ain’t never been that hungry, not since joining this gang and certainly not after hot meat off the fire, but Arthur’s a big man.

He allows himself a few seconds to notice that, to press an impression of broad shoulders and strong legs into his mind.

John offers him back his jacket. The dry clothes are warm enough, but Arthur shrugs and waves him off. He leaves it on, hanging around his slim frame. It doesn’t stink, just smells like tobacco and gun oil and the herbs Arthur is always tucking into pockets to use later. Maybe everyone did have a point about his own smell.

“When are you riding down to the water?”

“I’m not. It’s too cold up here.” Arthur chuckles in spite of himself. “I bathe at least once a week. Unlike some folks who don’t even know their own skin color, they’re so dirty.”

“That’s just ‘cause of years with Dutch,” John says. “Before I fell in with you all, nobody I knew bathed more than every couple months. They thought it brought on the sickness.”

Arthur tenses a little. Then he nods. “Lots of people think that. Same folks who buy snake oil cures from peddlers.”

“Stupid, right?”

“Ignorant, more like. Can’t read. Can’t write. Never met anyone from farther away than ten miles.”

“Yeah. Ignorant,” John mutters it mostly to himself. Arthur doesn’t know the people he used to know. If he did, he wouldn’t have such charitable opinions. They weren’t like the people Dutch picked up, everybody on fire for their beliefs, always on a crusade for something bigger. Those men were mean, and orphan kids like John were disposable unless they learned to be mean too.

Even all these years later, those memories can still hurt, like a cigarette burned out on the small of his back, like a stray bullet ripping open his left shoulder.

When John speaks next, he surprises himself.  “Been a long time since you and me struck out on our own. I half-thought you didn’t like me anymore.”

“I never liked you. You were a snot-nosed kid and then an arrogant son of a bitch.” But Arthur smiles.

“When was the last time?”

“Last time what?” John watches the smile fade. A guarded expression replaces it, but John pushes anyway.

“We rode out just the two of us like this.”

Arthur cannot lie. It’s not because he’s a terrible liar -- in fact, he can play a bit part beside Hosea better than anyone else in the gang -- but because he has no instinct for it. He’s either going to ignore you or tell the truth.

“The bank job in Sanders,” he says.

“That was two years ago,” John says. He plays his tone carefully. “We did alright. Two hundred bucks between the two of us after the gang’s share. Dutch wasn’t too happy though.”

“You got a question, Marston, just ask it.” Arthur looks right at him, and John holds his gaze steady but shrugs. He cannot make his mouth form a question out of the jumble of thoughts in his head, and mostly now, he wants to take back his decision to bring this up at all. He wants to go back to a few seconds ago and joke back to Arthur’s joke and keep the lightness bubbling between them. It’s too late for that.

“No question. I was just trying to remember.”

Arthur stands and stretches his arms up. “I’m going to sleep. You’ve got first watch.”

“Okay.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still no beta. Forgive me my typos!

The rain starts in the wee hours of the morning, waking John up with its stinging cold droplets. There was no reason to keep a wide-eyed, wary vigil, and he had stretched out a bedroll on the ground hours ago. Now as the rain intensifies, he considers his options. He can get wet again or he can muscle his way into the tent. He chooses the latter.

Arthur is dead asleep, half on the cold ground, his arms and legs both sprawled wide. He snores like a bear.

“Arthur, move over.” John crouches over him, nudges him with his foot. Arthur does not startle or open his eyes.

“No.” The word is mostly grunt.

“It’s raining.”

“Mmmpmm.” Arthur rolls onto his side now, but he still shows no sign of waking up. John eases down onto the ground beside him.

There are unspoken rules for sleeping like this. They’ve all done it before. Dutch does not allow any contact at all, backs facing one another, fronts pressed against the sides of the tent. One night John remembers sharing a bedroll with Dutch in a freak March snowstorm, teeth chattering so hard they shook his brain in his skull but knowing better than to scoot closer.

Meanwhile, Hosea has the wisdom to share a blanket on cold nights, unconcerned about hands and feet. Only with Hosea will Dutch bend his otherwise immutable rules, lying back to back against his dearest friend.

And then there is Arthur. Arthur has never given a damn. John has seen Davey get cold in the middle of the night _at camp_ and crawl onto Arthur’s cot, accepting his cuff upside the head in the morning as a fair price for a warm body. John himself has shared blankets and bedrolls with Arthur a hundred times on the road, arms thrown together, shoulders serving as pillows.

But it has been a long time, and as he lays down now, he does not know what to do with his body. He shifts back to back, back to front, and back again.

Arthur grunts and rolls over, tosses an arm over John’s hip. Its possessive weight holds John steady.

“Stop moving, or I’ll throw you back out in the rain.”

“If you didn’t take up enough space for three men…” John mutters under his breath, but he gets only another long snore in reply. Arthur always has slept well and easily.

John, though, is not so blessed. His breathing will not steady in his chest, his lungs moving too slowly, while his heart thuds all too quickly. Arthur is warm and steady and familiar and _there_ , right _there_.

He thinks of Abigail. When she lays beside him, she curls into him, strokes a hand down his chest with devious purpose and bright eyes. He rouses to it every time. He enjoys her. With her, it is easy to forget how he can feel: the racing of his heart, the sweet, sharp ache in his stomach, the low, rumbling warning thunder of wanting too much.

Right now, he wonders how anyone who has ever felt this could ever forget it.

John is an excellent poker player, better than anyone else he knows. He rarely gambles off the table, for there is too much to lose, but he gambles now.

“Hey.” He holds very still, his voice barely a whisper. “Arthur.”

Another grunt.

“Why was Dutch mad after Sanders?” He swallows down the urge to say more, to pinpoint that moment as the one everything changed. Something that melodramatic would wrest conscious Arthur from a dead sleep just to call him a fool.

“Guessed how I felt.” The sleepy mumble is barely words.

John makes himself hold the same steady tone even as his heart threatens to burst through his ribcage. “About what?”

“John.”

After the name escapes, Arthur’s snoring roars back to life, loud enough to scare away the game for half a mile, but that isn’t what keeps John up until morning.

That isn’t what makes John get up to start brew coffee as soon as the rain stops.

  


\-------------------

  


John has loved a lot of Arthurs.

When he was new to the gang, a knock-kneed kid with a big mouth and penchant for trash talk, he had followed the man around like a puppy, trying to copy his walk, his swagger, his throaty, confident “Sure” in the face of any dilemma. Arthur had been the god at whose altar he worshipped, a hero with a devotee on his heels. When he got older, he had seen him as a brother, convinced himself they were family in a conventional way. With just a little more experience under his belt, he was able too see Arthur as a partner, two outlaws side-by-side against the world.

But along with his beard and a smidgeon of self-control, his feelings grew too. The broad, sweeping strokes and blurry colors had sharpened into focus and scared the hell out of him.

And Abigail had helped him hide from it right when a chasm widened between him and Arthur.

John sips at his coffee and thinks about the crossroads he’s standing on. He makes decisions he is likely to regret.

“Morning.” Arthur unfolds from the tent with a yawn. He has fuzz from the wool blanket stuck in his beard stubble and crust at the corners of his eyes. Another yawn cracks open his whole face. John doesn’t lie to himself this time: Arthur is beautiful.

“Coffee?” John holds out a tin mug. Arthur accepts and takes a gulp that has to burn. John plows ahead. “You had a lot to say last night.”

Arthur snorts inquisitively. His face remains smooth, unconcerned. “About what?”

“Sanders. Dutch. Me.”

Now Arthur darkens, a scowl replacing the straight line of his mouth, but John does not stop. He presses forward over the objection about to come.

“You’ve never been a liar, Arthur. Not with me. And things ain’t been right, and you know it.” It might be the bravest statement John has ever made. “Tell me the truth.”

They stare at each other, and John watches Arthur’s face cycle through a series of thoughts and feelings, mysterious to a man as simple as John who only knows he is happiest when Arthur is there, anything better than nothing.

“I haven’t even had my coffee yet,” Arthur says sadly.

“I figured I’d never get it out of you if you got a gun in your hand first.” The levity falls flat.

John admires Arthur for not flinching or hiding. He stands up straight across from him and makes direct eye contact.

“You couldn’t have been more than eighteen when Dutch first talked to me about it. He reminded me we’re both sons of Dutch, brothers, and I knew what he meant, what he was worried about.” Arthur unwinds the words gently. “I was careful after that. I wasn’t looking to ruin your life with anything. I’m what I am. A bad man headed for bad ends. You were just a kid.”

John opens his mouth to argue, but this time, he is the one who gets cut off.

“After Sanders went sideways, we were on the run longer than we needed to be. I knew that, shoulda brought us home before I did. But…”

“But it was the best time we’d had in a long time,” John finishes.

“Yeah.” Arthur pauses like he is remembering it too. “It didn’t just make things bad with Dutch. He and Hosea had a fight over it too. I never saw them argue. You never do. But you can tell when they have.”

“After that, it was all different.”

Arthur nods. “Hosea thought Dutch didn’t trust me, and Dutch thought you were still a kid needing his protection when you’d been a man for a while.”

“So we split down the middle. Me and Dutch. You and Hosea.”

“And I got out of my own damn way and stopped worrying about whatever it was about you causing us trouble.” Arthur drinks a swig of his coffee now, looks settled and comfortable in his skin again. John recognizes the square-up of his shoulders as they are about to get back to work. It opens a pit in his stomach. “It worked out too. Dutch and Hosea are better than they’ve been in years, and you’ve got Abigail.”

John hates how casual he sounds, how Arthur can fold up all this and put it away like a bedroll in his saddlebag.

“Who have you got?” He rasps through a dry throat. He licks his lips.

Arthur chuckles, shrugs a little. “Hosea. Dutch. You. Ms. Grimshaw. Abigail. I’m alright.”

“I guess you are.”

“Now if you’re done sharing our goddamned feelings, let’s go hunting.”

“Okay.”

They have a banner day of deer hunting: a buck and two does between them. There’s no awkwardness. Arthur even corrects John as they field dress their kills -- “Watch that you don’t bust that bladder” -- and they salt the meat and wrap it in clean cloths before packing it away. There is day left by the time they finish, and the ride to camp is not too long to make before nightfall.

But Arthur says, “I’m tired. Let’s camp another night,” and John agrees.

  


\-----------------

  


After fresh kill off the fire and the rest of the bottle of the whiskey passed between them, Arthur pulls his journal out of his saddlebag and writes by the campfire. John watches the strong hands carefully hold the pencil, sketching little lines across the page, invisible to an onlooker. They’re beside each other on the ground, sharing a spread blanket to keep the damp out.

“What are you drawing?” John used to ask him that all the time. Arthur glances up.

“You.”

John’s heart squeezes in his chest, but then Arthur turns the journal and shows him. It’s a rough sketch: John, filthy in his clothes yesterday, greasy hair plastered to the side of his face, his cowboy hat sporting a ragged bullet hole. But it is good. No one would have to guess who it was.

“I took the damn bath.”

“I know, but this is how you looked for so long I can draw it from memory,” Arthur shoots back.

John cannot stop himself from bringing it back up again; he cannot resist the temptation. “I didn’t bathe after our Sanders job either. It was cold then too.”

They stare each other down now.

“You keep bringing that up. You got something to say?” Arthur says.

John slaps his hands on his knees. “Jesus, Arthur. You want me to say it?”

“I did.”

“No.” John shakes his head. “You didn’t.”

Arthur opens his mouth and then shuts it. He nods and turns his body, places the journal down beside them, and leans forward, palms flat on the ground. His eyes flicker in a blue blaze in the fire. John swallows hard, licks his lips. A pack of wolves could come howling into camp, and he wouldn’t be able to look away from Arthur.

“There’s never been anyone kept me on edge like you,” Arthur says. “Dutch was right. I’d lead you down a bad road if you’d let me.”

John cannot breathe. He cannot think. He needs to reply and say something, but there are no _words_ , words aren’t good enough for the tangle inside of him, words can’t fix the hole in his gut or the ache in his balls.

He doesn’t decide to kiss Arthur; he just _does_. John scrambles across the ground and falls into him, catches him in close-mouthed surprise but does not mind because those lips, surprisingly soft, surprisingly warm, are enough. Until they open under his, and suddenly the taste of Arthur is the only thing he will ever crave for the rest of his life, even if he is lucky enough to live a lifetime and die an old man in bed.

Arthur sinks his fingers into John’s hair and tilts his head back, slides his tongue across the soft bow of his mouth, and John shivers.

“You goddamned fool,” Arthur whispers.

John pulls him in tighter and makes himself a promise. He wants this, more than he has ever wanted anything, but he will not let Arthur carry the weight of it. Dutch had been wrong. He had pinned this on Arthur like a Scarlet A, a badge of iniquity. Dutch had put John, the boy whose brash mouth and bravado better matched his own, on a pedestal he never deserved. Arthur has never been the corruptor.

“If I had been sure you wouldn’t shoot me, I’d have done this a long time ago.” John kisses his words onto a stubbled cheek. “It’s always been you, Arthur.”

Arthur leans back, meets his gaze, and opens his mouth. John frowns.

“Don’t say anything unless it’s no. Unless what you want to say is ‘John, no, I don’t want this,’ don’t say it.”

Arthur closes his mouth again, and John says a silent prayer of gratitude as he pulls him toward the tent.  


 

\----------------

  


John undresses Arthur with all the reverence the moment is due. Years of quiet, aching longing satisfied in slow touches. He pulls the hat off first, touches the sandy, sun-kissed hair and indulges again in scratching his fingers through the rough beard. Arthur shivers when John drags his mouth along the sharp angle of the jawline.

Next, John removes the shirt. His fingers brush skin with each button he undoes, and when he pushes the fabric away from Arthur’s broad shoulders, he cannot bring himself to rush, even as his cock presses against his pants and his breathing comes short. Arthur’s skin is two-toned: soft tan along his forearms and neck but creamy white on his chest and stomach. Every inch of him bears the marks of his life: small scars from knives and bullets that almost reached their goal and chiseled definition in the muscles from slinging feed sacks and throwing right hooks. John touches each one as if he can measure its story through the pads of his fingers.

Arthur barely breathes under his touch. John fears the moment he will hear “no” but lowers his hands to the belt buckle anyway. Arthur puts his hands on John’s, twines his fingers through, and they pull together. Arthur lifts his hips and shakes out of his pants.

“Arthur,” John groans.

He has never seen Arthur like this before: vulnerable, fully exposed, erect and ready and flushed red through his cheeks and chest. He wishes he could draw so he could leave this in the journal, give Arthur a physical representation of what seeing him means to John.

“If you’re going to tell me no, do it now,” John whispers. “Please don’t let me get any closer just to turn me down.”

Arthur grabs John and kisses him again. They fumble together in perfect gracelessness, and John hates every woman and man who has ever gotten to touch Arthur before. He wishes he could see Mary Linton now and tell her what a fool she was to walk away from this man. He wishes he could see Abigail to apologize to her for never being able to offer her what she deserves, to never be able to feel _this_. The white-hot jealousy presses his fingers in too hard, makes him bite when he means to nip, but Arthur forgives him with every penitent touch.

John slides his mouth onto Arthur’s cock without warning, afraid of being denied, and moans around the thick, hard shaft. He sucks as Arthur shudders, teasingly scratches his stubble through the curls of hair on strong thighs. John savors his ability to compose music from Arthur’s reactions.

A slow tongue swirl up the underside of the cock. A panting, throaty groan.

Fingers kneading balls lightly, rolling them under the thin skin. A low moan.

But when he finds the perfect speed, moving his head in rhythm with Arthur’s bucking hips, he earns the sound that will carry him through every lonely night in his future: “John. Jesus, John, Jesus.”

  


\-----------------

  


Nights cannot last forever, and when they had both had spent themselves, used each other’s bodies with all the depravity of men with two dollar whores and all the worship of courtiers in the beds of queens, they slept in one another’s arms. When John wakes up in the morning, Arthur is already at the fire eating bird eggs cooked in a tin cup. He has made John two as well.

“Time to get back, huh?” Arthur says.

John watches Arthur’s face and waits for a sign. “Dutch won’t be happy. This was a long bath.”

“I don’t think I care.”

“I know I don’t. I’m loyal to what matters.” John blushes a little as he says it, but Arthur gives him a beautiful, wide, slow smile that lasts only a few seconds.

“Me too.”

They break camp and ride home in peaceful silence, full of unspoken promises and deep wishes.

But when they reach camp, a dark-eyed Abigail is waiting there to talk to her John. The news she shares with him in the sanctity of his tent… he bears it quietly in her presence, pats her shoulder and promises to take care of her, but when he finds the privacy, he steps out into the peaceful circle of the trees and hides his face in his hands.

He alone knows what he has lost, and he cries for it. Arthur Morgan is a man of honor, and John will never have him now.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm so sorry. By virtue of what I did at the end of this fic, it stays totally canon compliant and makes it so that the "be loyal to what matters" line in the game is a callback to their past and their feelings and why Arthur wants the best for John and ugh... Let me just go cry myself to sleep.
> 
> These cowboys.


End file.
